Yet another supermarket trolley responsible for causing the damage to this brand new Jeep. Trolleys fully laden do a lot more damage than empty ones, although both are equally as annoying for the customer. This horizontal damage was quite a long repair, taking just over 3 hours.
Front wing dents are one of the easier panels to repair dents on. The access is good, usually only having to remove the inner splash guard fractionally. They also offer good body positioning to work, usually kneeling down, in order to apply good leverage and control of the specialist tooling we use on the back of the panel.
With most of the dents I repair, I provide a quotation having seen several photographs of the damage. Occasionally however, this can catch me out. That was the case with this damage as I hadn’t realised it very stretched. Some dents are clearly visible that they are stretched, others, it’s only once you begin work you realise. Regardless, this dent came out well but took twice as long to repair.
What a challenge this one was. This panel had be hit incredibly hard and had completely buckled the bodyline. As well as this there was a lot of metal displacement above the dent in the small flat section of the panel. This we call either a ‘crown’, ‘smile’ or trapped pressure. A good understanding of how metal moves is paramount with repairs of this nature. Competent hammer skills are also vital in bringing everything back into shape.
This is a very common and routine repair within paintless dent removal. The application of heat is used in many cases such as this where the bodyline has been impacted. By keeping the panel warm it allows the dent to be move more easily when being massaged from the back and reduces the risk of fracturing the paintwork. It is very important not to apply to much heat though as this could severely compromise the paints finish.